1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a cutting apparatus suitable for cutting a sheet, a plate-shaped material, or the like.
2. Description of the Related Art
A cutting apparatus has conventionally been known to include a carriage configured to be movable two-dimensionally against a work material, such as a paper sheet, and a cutter mounted to the carriage (see, for example, JP 1995-276293 A). Among this type of cutting apparatus, one type of the apparatus in which the cutter is moved vertically by a voice coil motor is also known. A cutting apparatus having a motor capable of controlling cutting pressure is allowed to freely set the speed of relative movement of a carriage equipped with a cutter against the work material (which will be hereinafter referred to as “cutting speed” as appropriate), and also set the pressure of the cutter against the work material, i.e., the cutting pressure. It should be noted that the term “cutting” used in the present description is meant to include partial cutting of a work material across its thickness, as well as cutting of the work material across its entire thickness.
Although the conventional cutting apparatuses can freely set the cutting pressure and the cutting speed, it is difficult to set an appropriate cutting pressure depending on the thickness or hardness of the work material. For example, when the operator is going to cut a thick work material, the cutting pressure should be set relatively higher or the cutting speed to be slower than a usual setting, and such setting adjustment may be done based on the experience and intuition of the operator. Alternatively, the operator may need to perform a so-called two-times cutting operation, in which the work material is cut to half the thickness thereof in the first time process and the remaining half-thickness portion thereof is cut in the second or subsequent process, without making the cutting pressure higher than a certain pressure. As a consequence, the cutting work takes a lot of work and becomes very troublesome, reducing work efficiency.